An Event Definition is a set of basic rules that operate on a set of employment events such as hire, leave of absence, termination, etc.. The rules defined in the Event Definition provide the basic structure needed to compute service. There is one basic rule for each event: specify whether the inception of the event starts service, stops service or should be ignored. The events are referenced in a Service Definition and are driven off of a coded field that is set up in the Data Dictionary.

The Event Definition dialog box includes the following parameters:

Name may be any descriptive phrase, including spaces, under which to save this Event Definition.

Field is a drop down that displays all of the coded fields from your Data Dictionary. Select the field that will be used to start and stop the service calculation.

Events: after you have selected the Field, a spreadsheet is created that contains the labels for each code in the coded field. Click the row next to each event to define how it affects the service calculation.  The Type for each code may be set to Ignore Event, Start Service or Stop Service. If editing an existing Event Definition, an asterisk (*) beside an event label lets you know that it is being used in an "Override by Event(s)" section of a Service Definition.

The Permitted Combinations... button allows you to specify error and warning messages to be displayed at the end of a calculation when certain pairs of event combinations occur in the participant's data.  Clicking the button brings up a dialog with a spreadsheet of each of the possible pairs of events from your selected field. The pairs represent changes From any event To the next event. An example could be from a hire event to a termination event. Pairs of events are evaluated during the service portion of the calculation when the Event Definition is used in a Service Definition. If you would like to message to be produced when a certain sequence of events occurs, click into the Message column of that sequence and change the message from <NONE> to an entry from the Message Definition library.  The following items are on the dialog:

Edit Message Def... button will open the Message Definition library where you can peruse the entries or make a new one.

Example: you may not want to allow a hire event to be followed by another hire event with no termination of employment in between. You can select an error message that might say "This participant has two consecutive hire events. Please correct the data." Error messages stop the calculation and results are not computed. On the other hand you may want to just issue a warning that might say "This participant has two consecutive hire events." Warning messages allow the calculation to continue until completed.

Message is the column where you select the messages.  Clicking in a box provides a dropdowm list of available messages where you can select the message you want ProAdmin to display at the end of a calculation.

Reset button will change all selected messages to <NONE> and you are able to re-select the messages..

Click OK to save your changes or Cancel to exit without saving.

*= events used in overrides can’t be ignored reminds you that the event cannot be set to Ignore event since it is being used in an Override by Event(s) section of a Service Definition and must be either a start or stop event.

Click OK to save your changes or Cancel to exit without saving.